Kentucky Ranks 9th With Biggest Increase in Unemployment

So many businesses have been forced to shut down operations temporarily impacting the workforce in a big way. According to a new report from WalletHub, Kentucky has seen the 9th biggest increase in unemployment due to COVID-19. Additionally, the Commonwealth has the 3rd highest increase in unemployment claims.

Increase in Kentucky Unemployment Due to Coronavirus (1=Worst, 25=Avg.):

5,391.60% Increase in Unemployment Claims (April 2020 vs April 2019)

115,763 the week of April 6, 2020 vs 2,108 the week of April 8, 2019

3rd highest increase in the U.S.

2,136.97% Increase in the Number of Unemployment Claims (April 2020 vs January 2020)

115,763 the week of April 6, 2020 vs 5,175 the week of January 1, 2020

13th highest increase in the U.S.

4,391.14% Increase in Unemployment Claims Since Pandemic Started

395,510 between March 16, 2020 and April 6, 2020 vs 9,007 between March 18, 2019 and April 8, 2019

8th highest increase in the U.S.

“During the Great Recession, a grand total of 8.8 million Americans lost their jobs. The coronavirus pandemic has already claimed 22 million jobs,” said Jill Gonzalez, WalletHub analyst. “While there have been 22.7 million jobs created since the Great Recession, COVID-19 is unfortunately on track to wipe out all of the job gains by the end of this week, according to WalletHub projections.”

To identify which states’ workforces have been hurt most by COVID-19, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on increases in unemployment claims. We used this data to rank the most impacted states in both the latest week for which we have data (April 6) and overall since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis (March 16).